Pediatric Movement Disorders - Spasticity

Etiology

Direct Damage to Motor Cortex:
In common practice, direct damage to the motor cortex is most often due to an episode or prolonged occurrence of low oxygen [hypoxia] or low blood flow [ischemia] or both. Hypoxia (e.g., prenatal utero-placental insufficiency and perinatal asphyxia, near-drowning, apparent life-threatening events, suffocation, etc.), trauma, tumor, stroke, brain malformations, viral encephalitis. "Cerebral palsy" means any weakness due to brain injury.

Injury to Corticospinal Tract in the Brain:
Periventricular leukomalacia (a form of cerebral palsy, probably caused by hypoxic-ischemic injury in premature newborns), tumor, stroke, multiple sclerosis (MS)

Injury to Corticospinal Tract in the Spinal Cord:
Spinal cord traumatic injury, spinal tumor, epidural abscess, spina bifida (and tethered cord), multiple sclerosis (transverse myelitis), syringomyelia, spinal ischemia, venous thrombosis

Degenerative Disease:
Ceroid lipofuscinosis, Tay-Sachs disease, Rett syndrome, tropical spastic paraparesis, spinocerebellar ataxias (including Machado-Joseph disease), Rasmussen's encephalitis, hemiatrophy-hemiseizure syndrome, sialidosis, Pelizaeus-Merzbacher syndrome